


Of Red Hoods & Hounds

by DxrlingDoll



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Adolescent Sexuality, Coming of Age, Consensual Underage Sex, F/M, Fairy Tale Retellings, Inspired by The Company of Wolves, Red Riding Hood Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-29 00:38:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20073265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DxrlingDoll/pseuds/DxrlingDoll
Summary: "Little girls, this seems to say, never stop upon your way. Never trust a stranger friend; no one knows how it will end. As your pretty, so be wise. Wolves may lurk in every guise. Handsome they may be, and kind, gay or charming - never mind! Now, as then, 'tis simple truth. Sweetest tongue has sharpest tooth!"AUin which Sansa strays from the path on multiple occasions throughout her young life, and learns that there are far worse things than wolves lurking in the dark.





	1. Chapter 1

Scarlet caped and crimson-haired is the child he finds wandering through the woods. She’s a hatchling of a girl, her sapphire eyes still damp with the saline sorrow of her pitiful past. She doesn’t trust him at first, but that’s fine with him. He doesn’t need her to trust him. He doesn’t even need her to know of him, which is why he has no problem keeping his distance.

Watching her from afar is better than nothing, and although he doesn’t quite enjoy trailing after her like some kind of huntsman in pursuit of his next kill, he knows he has no other option. Little wolf pups who’d strayed too far from both the path and pack alike had a tendency of ending up dead. Either skinned alive for their flawless fur or swallowed whole for the sake of appeasing some cruel beast’s appetite. Yes, the Hound knew better than anyone what becomes of strays.

After all, he is one himself…

* * *

Her story starts in winter.

  
The ground beneath her mother’s feet is every bit as malleable as it is unbearable. Trudging through the frigid slush as the midwives help her make her way inside, she can already feel the labor pains tugging at her insides. This isn’t her first child and from the way she and her husband make love, she’s almost positive it won’t be her last, but that doesn’t make this any less troubling. Having lost her own mother on the birthing bed at such a young age, the Lady of Winterfell knows how easily things can turn. One moment, it’s just a matter of pushing. Breathing in and out as the midwives scurry around, rubbing her back and uttering sweet words of reassurance. One minute, there isn’t a thing in the world to fear. For what she is doing is older than man itself. She isn’t the first, and so she won’t be the last. This isn’t her first, and so it won’t be her last. Nobody thinks about what she already knows. Childbearing is a bloody business, the only form of self-massacre and revival that the human body is capable of. A woman’s greatest burden, and yet a talent like no other. A gift, some would say. A curse, others would know.

  
As they move her away from the fireplace and help her on to the bed, she remembers her mother’s sheets. The contrast was like nothing she’d ever seen before, such a dark shade of velvet red splattered across fresh cream-colored linen. For all the luxuries being of noble birth came with, evading one’s demise was certainly not one of them. When she feels the midwives spread her legs apart, she can’t help but recall the song her mother used to sing to her. The words have been lost for years now, she was barely even a child the day the Gods took the woman, but the tune had always stuck with her. Even now, as the blood of her blood toiled and tossed inside of her, the humming of a ghost-given nursery rhyme was still softly trailing on the tips of her pale-pink lips. Soon enough, however, there was no need for it. No amount of silent prayers or muffled hymns could stop the nightmarish screams emanating from the mother-to-be. Catelyn didn’t fear death in the ways one would imagine. She’d felt death come and go back as a Tully girl, and knew she’d feel it once more as a Stark woman, but there were worse things than death currently looming over her sweat-covered forehead. The thought of leaving her only child behind, a cherub-looking little son who had her father’s eyes and her husband’s nose chilled her to the bone.

  
Although she could never say for certain considering how delirious the entire process had been, it was the sole thought of leaving her boy without a mother that carried her to the other side of bringing her daughter into the world. When they placed the crying tenderling into her arms, Catelyn smiled as the wailing of her newborn daughter rang across the bedroom. Through baited breaths, she managed to place a gentle kiss upon the infant’s head. She’d never seen anything or anyone quite as wonderful, and from the moment she stared into the bright azure irises of the girl-child who was much smaller than her son had been, she knew exactly what to name her. “Sansa…” she said softly into the open air as she cradled the delicate bundle of flesh in her arms, “I want this child to be named after my grandmother. Please…” A faint shimmer of sorrow washed over her features as she glanced up at all the midwives as they doted ceaselessly on the mother-daughter duo, not at all understanding the severity of their Lady’s words, “Ensure that my husband knows I want her named Sansa. Please, he must know!”

  
By the time Eddard Stark arrived though, his wife’s body was already as cold as the Northern frost which followed him inside the cottage. A solemn atmosphere had engulfed the entire room with the midwives softly weeping amongst themselves. It was a terrible sight to see, this woman who’d been so filled with life and light only a few hours ago was now as dead and hollow as the forest floor. “It’s a girl, my Lord,” a midwife said after a while, the guilt on her face ever so evident as she disrupted a man who was currently kneeling beside his dearly departed wife, “Lady Stark named her Sansa before her, her-um…”

The man said nothing as he took the bundle from the older woman’s arms, the grief-stricken expression never leaving his face as he stared down at his newborn daughter. _Her passing,_ he mused bitterly but didn’t dare to say such things aloud. The last thing he needed was to start crying in front of a total stranger. The midwife excused herself rather nervously afterward, before leaving to go join the others outside the chamber walls. In the distance, he could hear the bells of Winterfell ringing. Once for the little noble girl they had to welcome, twice for the Lady they’d have to bury, and then three times to recognize the end of a Stark-Tully era.

  
“Sansa,” he said aloud as he held the tiny creature in his arms, adoring every little thing about her while simultaneously despising the fact that she was the last part of his wife he had left. _Cate shouldn’t have died for you_, it was a God’s awful thing to think, but the angst-ridden Lord couldn’t help himself. His wife was dead, his son was motherless, and now he had a daughter he’d have to raise and care for as well. Heaving out a heavy sigh, he placed the bawling babe into the cradle the carpenter had made months in advance for the arrival of the Stark’s newest blessing. He couldn’t bear to look at her. Not now, not when his wife was still lying there on her death bed, her skin paler than Northern ice and her eyes as wide as a full moon. He knew love would come later.

  
_Correction_ – he _**prayed**_ love would come later.


	2. Chapter 2

_Little girls, this seems to say..._

* * *

The first time she enters the forest on her own, she’s a furious little girl-child of only eight summers. Her father’s voice rings throughout the open air, and though her trudging footsteps are doing everything in their power to get as far away from him as possible, nothing can stop the sound of him in her mind’s eye. Although fairly accustomed to it by now, there isn’t a thing in the world she hates more than his screaming. It’s a disturbing noise, the kind that makes her blood run cold on command and despite the little good that will come from running away, she knows anything is worth getting away from his intolerability.

**That** \- and morning prayer with her Septa.

She doesn’t mean to be so disobedient, but Sundays are her least favorite day! From the moment she wakes, she’s required to study scripture and listen to the various lectures about the boring Old Gods and their dreary old ways. And then afterward, she’s forced to go before the Weirwood tree and pray alongside her Septa until it was time to go in and work on her embroidery. Now, it wasn’t that Sansa enjoy didn’t enjoy practicing needlework. She was actually quite good at it! Septa was always praising her on the neatness of her stitching. What Sansa couldn’t take, however, was the complete and utter isolation of not being able to study alongside the other noble girls in the village. Why she had to attend private sessions with her Septa while all the others learned dances and studied the fine-arts as a group, the little red-head couldn’t fathom for the life of her. It didn’t make sense, and so she was taking a stand once and for all. Well, more of a hike…

Okay, it had become a stroll at this point, but that didn’t matter.

Immersing herself further between the tall evergreens, she felt like a newly bathed pup as the gentle smell of dewdrops and fresh rainfall coated the inside of her nose. Watching her feet, she tried her best to avoid accidentally stepping into any mud puddles. Gods knew there’d be trouble enough for her without returning with mud all of her crème-colored slippers. Looming overhead, she could hear the soft tweeting of songbirds as they chirped away their labors. She imagined it couldn’t be easy, having to rise so early on the off-chance one _might_ catch a worm. It reminded her of her older brother, Robb who their father always forced to fetch fresh firewood first thing in the morning whenever it came time for long nights and heavy snowfall. Much like how Sansa imagined the birds, however, Robb never complained. He’d get up, take their father’s ax, and come back with a bountiful load of thick logs. It made their father smile every time, and although that too was something the blue-eyed hatchling had grown quite used to, Sansa was convinced she didn’t care. What difference did it make if their father always found faults in all of her wrong (**and right**) doings? Did it really even matter if he never raised any of these concerns against her twelve-year-old brother? No, it did not.

Sansa didn’t care any more about that than she did the fact that her father’s friends were always saying how much Robb looked like their mother’s father when he was his age. She thought of her often, especially now while she was walking amongst the trees and keeping an extra watchful eye out for any fairy circles. She’d heard stories about the Children of the Forest using them to practice their mystic rituals the same way she’d heard tales of her mother. Seldomly from the lips of her brother or father, but it left her feeling warm and soft inside all the same. _I bet she wouldn’t have kept me away from all the other girls, _she thought bitterly as she made sure not to trip over the handful of overgrown roots that had begun to litter her path. She knew this was a pretty good sign that it was high time she turned around and make her way back to the village, but the rambunctious little noble refused to give in. Fear wasn’t a bad reason not to do something, it just also hadn’t stopped her from running, so she didn’t see the use in letting it stop her now. Sansa didn’t fear the forest, though she certainly had every reason to, considering the way (<strike>she’d been told</strike>) her mother had passed and all…

Suddenly, there was a noise. It was subtle, but Sansa recognized the swift brushing of tree leaves instantly. Allowing her ocean hues to scope her surroundings, the little noble girl could feel the knots starting to clench in her stomach. She wanted to be brave like she had originally planned, to push through the dread of the moment and continue onward despite the potential lingering of an unknown presence. Sansa once dreamt of having sisters, a pretty older one who would teach her everything there was to know about being a proper lady, and a rough-around-the-edges younger one who’s inability to sit still would take them on all kinds of adventures. How she would have given anything in the world for that younger sister now, “Wh-Who’s there? Come out right now!” In actuality, the stranger revealing themselves was probably the last thing Sansa wanted. Though she was determined not to head back, the trepidation of not knowing who was currently following her was beginning to chip away at her spur of the moment reassurance. “My father is Lord Eddard Stark, and he’ll have your head if you hurt me! And my brother, he’ll-”_ Find a way to make do without me. _It was a terrible thing to say, even if only in her thoughts but Sansa couldn’t help it.

He was an impossible standard, her older brother. Partly because he was a boy and so she could never reach his aptitude regardless of what she chose to do to impress their father, but also because he was perfect in ways that Sansa knew she wasn’t. Her father’s friends always doted so kindly on how Robb was the spitting image of their maternal grandfather’s youth, it was something their father always noted as well. How they could share the same blood, and yet be so different when it came to their father’s adoration, Sansa didn’t understand. “Just stop hiding!” Her voice echoed off the bark-covered walls of the woods, and the lack of response from the stranger only made her fear that much more severe. Feeling so weak and having so much to run away from brought the little red-head to tears, but it also sent her scurrying off in the direction from which she came. Sansa prayed that the Gods would forgive her for disobeying her father and hoped that they’d send away whatever ugly looking monster was watching her. The adrenaline coursing through her veins as she darted passed the trees and practically flew over the overgrown roots was like nothing she had ever experienced. Sansa didn’t want to be afraid of the forest that encompassed her village home, but she also didn’t want to die like her mother. _Not out here. Not like this! Please, not like this._

By the time she returned, her cheeks were damp, and her likeness bore an expression that startled the living daylights out of her older brother who’d been in the middle of sparring with one of his friends. She clung to his waistline the way she’d seen startled children cling to the hem of their mother’s skirts. She would’ve given anything for a mother (or more skirts). “Sansa,” he uttered softly, the spiel of elderly-brother condemnation coming apart between his lips as he grabbed her by the shoulders and removed her from his midriff. Looking down at her startled eyes, all of his anger immediately melted away into concern. He couldn’t stand the sight of her crying, “What happened to you? Why are you crying? Father said you ran away into the woods.”

“I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to Robb, I was just…”

“It doesn’t matter now,” the confliction on her older brother’s face wasn’t evident to the crying child, but it was there all the same. How he was going to muddle through his father’s temper and his sister’s current state, he wasn’t sure. Ned Stark wasn’t a cruel man, far from it but even he had his limits. Boundaries that the growing boy had yet to touch upon in their totality. Though by the looks of it, his little sister would be on the edge of them any day now. He didn’t understand why she was prone to such ill-mannered episodes. He never thought such things, but Sansa was a pretty little girl who had all the potential in the world to become quite a promising lady. She just needed to restrain herself more, “And look, you got mud all over your shoes too! You know Septa will never let you hear the end of that. Just run along now, I have to go retrieve father and the others.”

“But Robb, there was something in the woods! There was-”

“Go,” in truth, the bright-haired boy didn’t care what it was his sister thought she saw. Clearly, even if there was something, she came back safe and sound and so it didn’t make much of a difference. Besides, he wasn’t about to start brewing trouble simply because a wandering deer or a stealthy fox had taken his irresponsible sibling off-guard. Robb had much bigger problems to concern himself with, especially considering all that would come to pass later that evening. He didn’t even want to think about how upset their father would be.

Heaving out a sigh, the last thing Sansa saw between her tears was her brother mounting his horse and riding off into the forest. Unlike her, Robb was allowed to go wherever whenever, and he never really had to answer for it. Seeing as he was still just a boy, he rarely ever wandered far but the little red-head knew that would change eventually. As she made her way back home, arms wrapped over her chest in a makeshift embrace, she found her mind wandering back to thoughts of birds and worms. Now that she was truly musing over it, she decided that she couldn’t think of a fate much worse than being the poor worm who stuck its head out of the dirt long enough to become a bird’s next meal.

Well, that and being **_herself _**of course.


End file.
